33 Stats That Paint a Picture of the Future of Marketing

The future of our beloved marketing industry is changing fast -- the good news is, we don't even need a crystal ball to see where it's headed!

HubSpot CMO Mike Volpe, when sharing his story on how he came to be HubSpot's fifth employee, says the problem he faced as a marketer was finding an
integrated marketing software solution
that allowed him to see how his various marketing efforts impacted his website and revenue. Little did he know when yearning for this marketing system that it was in the process of being built

That was just five years ago, and now our industry is at a place where
Mike Volpe's dream has been realized
. Now, it's time to tap into the other dreams marketers are having ... so we can solve them! Like true HubSpotters, we turn to the data to let us know what marketers are yearning for. And the statistics in this blog post are screaming it in our faces, telling us exactly where the future of our industry lies. Here are 33 statistics that give you a glimpse into where the future of marketing is headed!

Social Media and Social Lead Nurturing

1)
Failure to respond via social channels can lead to up to a 15% increase in churn rate for existing customers. (Source:
Gartner
)
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2)
37% of brands would like to use social media engagement to create customer-tailored marketing campaigns. (Source:
Forrester
)
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7)
Currently, marketers allocate 7.6% of their budgets to social media. CMOs expect that number to reach 18.8% in the next five years. (Source:
CMO Survey
)
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8)
60.2% of marketers are looking for analysis options, as well as other analytics options, in their social media management tools. (Source:
SEOmoz
)
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9)
Regardless, marketers still continue to struggle with integrating social media into the company’s overall strategy. On a scale of 1-7, only 6.8% of respondents believe that social media is “very integrated” into their strategy (the highest rank for the question), while 16.7% believe that it's not integrated at all (the lowest rank for the question). (Source:
CMO Survey
)
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What These Social Media Stats Say About the Future of Marketing

There are a few key takeaways from these social media stats. First, marketers are increasingly using social media. It's no longer a matter of "you have to be on social." It's a matter of "we're active on social." The problem with this, however, leads to the second takeaway. Marketers are still in need of a system that will clearly provide social media analytics, indicate where social media users are travelling to and from, and show how their social media efforts are directly impacting their business. Finally, marketers (and CMOs!) want to do all of this with an
integrated system
. Marketers can't be running from a blogging CMS, to a social publishing tool, to an analytics tool all day. They need these to all be connected in
one system that does it all
.

Personalization, Relevancy and Dynamic Content

11)
The top reasons for U.S. email users to unsubscribe from a business or non-profit email subscription are too many emails (69%) and content that is no longer relevant (56%). (Source:
Chadwick Martin Bailey
)
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13)
A high-impact recommendation from a trusted friend conveying a relevant message is up to 50 times more likely to trigger a purchase than a low-impact recommendation. (Source:
McKinsey Quarterly
)
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What These Personalization, Relevancy, & Dynamic Content Stats Say About the Future of Marketing

People want targeted and relevant content. Marketers need to provide it. While marketers already know they
should
be segmenting their contacts and sharing only what the content that's most valuable to their audience, it's not always happening. The problem is, who has the budget or resources to have multiple marketing managers focus on segmenting out all their email contacts among people at different stages of involvement with the brand? To solve it,
marketers need
a system that can personalize communication and trigger the right messages
to be sent to the right person at the right time.

What These Email Marketing & Automation Stats Say About the Future of Marketing

We already understand from the personalization stats that customization is a must. But gone are the days of
just
that. Marketers need a tool that will trigger their emails by a series of rules set by the marketer to create dynamically evolving segments and automate marketing actions. More than email automation, marketers need to be able to enable campaigns to set off when needed. By doing so, marketers will understand the
value of marketing automation
-- it's not about blasting out messages. It's about finding a way to improve the targeting of your messages to improve the user experience while benefiting your business.

Marketing Analytics and Integration

24)
CMOs report they spend 8% of their marketing budgets on marketing analytics, and expect to increase this level in the next three years. (Source:
CMO Survey
)
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26)
By 2013, lead management campaigns integrating 4 or more digital channels will outperform single- or dual-channel campaigns by 300%. (Source:
Gartner
)
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27)
By 2014, over 40% of large complex marketing organizations will have developed a pace-layered application approach to integrated marketing. (Source:
Gartner
)
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What These Marketing Analytics & Intregration Stats Say About the Future of Marketing

As foreshadowed by Mike Volpe's story in our introduction, integration is a crucial element of a marketing team's success. Marketers need the kind of information you're reading right now: data. Data that provides insights and vision for where your marketing strategies should be headed. And while you can read general statistics through various studies, nothing will benefit your business like looking at specific data reflective of your own efforts. Having
an analytics system that integrates every part of your marketing
will ensure that you're making the right decisions and allocating budget wisely based off the successes and failures of your marketing efforts.

31)
45% of US businesses are conducting some form of mobile marketing, with mobile websites (70%), mobile applications (55%), and QR codes (49%) being the most common tactics. (Source:
StrongMail
)
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What These Mobile Marketing & Apps Stats Say About the Future of Marketing

All in all, marketing is undergoing a powerful transformation. There are needs to be met, ideas to be created, and revolutions coming out way. Once upon a time, we discussed how social media was a shiny new toy, email marketing was reincarnating into something valuable, and mobile apps were fun to click on. Now it's time to connect all these different parts. It's time to see how each supports one another to execute the perfect marketing campaign -- and watch how it does so by reveiwing the metrics in an integrated analytics platform.
Easy. Powerful. Integrated.
That's what marketing needs.

Where do you see the future of marketing going? Where do you
want
it to go?

It is HARD to convince your bosses, and better yet coworkers, why you are on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc... All they see is you playing around on the internet. I'm excited to show these stats to the team. Thanks!!

Awesome! For every single stat presented, I can think of couple of my clients who need to see it to inspire them to act. Looking at all 33 stats as a whole is a bit daunging (for businesses small and large), but focusing on and taking action on one or two initiatives at a time will help "move the needle" (increase visibility, traffic, revenue, etc.)

Really good points. As mentioned, mobile marketing is increasingly important. Interesting stat is that straight adv on mobile is deeply distrusted (nearly 80%. Source: Nielsen) but POSITIVE mobile Apps show a massive increase in customer acquisition and retention (67% growing to 82% in three months. Source: Nielsen and Flurry Analytics).

Our researches and experience working with clients tends to support these figures. The other useful point to remember is that adv and promo in this sector is normally considerably cheaper than more traditional media.

Here is another stat: 83% of marketers feel overwhelmed by an excess of data. Brand metrics are invaluable but they often confuse more than illuminate. We also need to see more case studies of effective integrated campaigns. You can see examples on integratedbrands.org which is a wiki showcase of integrated brands. Please upload examples of the best campaigns so we can all learn from them.

Alex

Are you okes well? that first image of the baby is over a meg and scaled. tisk tisk :>

I thought your article had SOME relevance until I read your sentence, "Everyone has a smartphone".

You just blew it with a bullshit comment like that. The rest of your data now also have ZERO cred.

Denise Rubright

Great post...very insightful! As a internet marketer it is always refreshing to know that my company and industry has so much potential for growth.

Tina

Good job on bringing this all into focus. I find most social media not to be segmented enough. This is why it's challenging for marketers to be in the right spot or be on the right social media platform for the targeted audience.

When I meet with SMB clients this is exactly what I'm telling them and they are listening. Thankfully tools like HubSpot and HootSuite make it easier to pull off an integrated marketing approach. Love to see even more integration between HubSpot and HootSuite.